welcome to "inside politics." i'm john king. thank you for sharing your day with us. more transcripts from the house impeachment inquiry set to be released today from two witnesses central to the u.s. policy. four witnesses refused to

testify. plus mike pompeo is lying. watch for 2020 clues, and the one watching the closest is the president. >> hello, kentucky. you're about to reelect kentucky governor matt bevin. he's such a pain in the ass, but that's what you want. >> back to election day a bit later. we begin the hour waiting on the house intelligence committee and the release of testimony transcripts from two trump administration diplomats who are critical impeachment witnesses. kurt volker was the white house special envoy to ukraine. gordon sondland is the president's ambassador to the european union. both are two of the so-called three amigos who testified to pieces of the heart of the impeachment inquiry. it follows two other witness transcripts being put on the public record, marie

yavonovitch, the foreign ambassador to ukraine, and mike mckinley. they both painted how in their view officials failed to stand up for the experts and the diplomats and instead let a perilous campaign run by rudy giuliani run amok. we await the release of these transcripts and also some testimony denied today. >> reporter: yeah, no question about it, the two witnesses who were supposed to come today are not showing up. one works with the national security council and mike duffy who works in the national budget council. they believe this will all add up to an obstruction charge against the president, but the release of those two transcripts are bound to come out any

minute. gordon sondland, the u.s. ambassador, has high interest because of the role that he played, and what we've seen already in his opening statement which we revealed earlier that he was concerned that the president put on ice efforts to strengthen the relationship with ukraine with a meeting between president trump and the president of ukraine, and the president asked the u.s. officials to talk and deal with rudy giuliani's efforts. he learned later that rudy giuliani was pushing these investigations that could help the president politically. the question for gordon sondland, though, john, going forward and whether or not his testimony is consistent with what others have testified to. others have said gordon sondland's interaction, for instance, with the president were much more significant than he said, at least in his opening statement, including an interaction which the president apparently sold sotold sondland needed the ukranians to perform

those investigations. how did he handle that in the transcript? did he sidestep it, did he deny it? that's something we'll find out in a little bit, john. >> you're going to be running around and we'll see you in a few minutes, i suspect. with me in the studio, cnn's abby phillip, kathy lucie with the "wall street journal," karoum demirjian. two people who are key and two people we know so far became aware of giuliani's parallel effort, let me call it that to be polite. and at least in volker's case, from the testimony we heard, tried to deal with it. didn't like it but tried to figure out, can i do my job while this is still happening. >> they were deputized to effectively run it with rick

perry, the energy secretary. the energy secretary has not testified in the probe. it showed, basically, that the text messages we've seen, the bits of testimony that we've gotten thus far show that they figured, well, what's the alternative? it may be worse. has the president not talked to the ukranian president at all, because when you don't talk to the ukranian president, that effectively means you're giving something to russia which is right now helping the occupation in the eastern part of ukraine. so they figured, well, worse if he doesn't actually get involved, so let's see how we can actually make this happen. you see across those text messages that volker provided to the committee that there were questions laying out what seemed to be the basis of the quid pro quo the democrats are alleging the president actually attempted, that he withheld the face-to-face meeting with zelensky, the ukranian president, when he started those investigations and there were questions whether he was doing the same with the military aid money. sondland and volker are two people who would know better than anybody whether that was

actually the case. >> so they're critical to the corruption and abuse of power allegations democrats are trying to build. they give you a pretty damning, at least if you expect things to go normally, in the administration. i want to go back to marie yavonovitch. she lays out the timeline of, oh, i'm getting a sense of what rudy giuliani is up to. she's the ambassador. normally you would go through the ambassador. she's told by ukranian officials looking to hurt her standing back in the united states, looking to undermine the u.s. ambassador to the united states, the president's personal lawyer. an official tells her to watch her back because giuliani and his associates are angling for her to be pushed from her job. in a tweet, the president tweets for her removal and then she's pushed out.

again, in a normal world, if there is a change in policy or an important policy, the ambassador is looped in. she finds out giuliani is going around her behind her back. >> and it's not just that giuliani is going behind her back, there is a whole, as has been detailed in the testimony of other witnesses, a whole shadow campaign by giuliani who is the president's personal lawyer, not a member of the u.s. government in any sort of diplomatic capacity, to run this other channel of diplomacy. and that's problematic for her. actually, my favorite piece that came out in the testimony was when someone advised her to go big or go home. by that they meant tweet at the president. put out some nice tweets about the president. this is not normally how diplomacy usually works. >> it was sondland who gave her that advice. if you want to keep your job, tweet nice things about the president. >> this was not in her position to do that. it really does show exactly

that, that recognition of these dual tracks of foreign policy and the pressure she felt she was under and still feels like she is under. >> so part of the challenge now for republicans and the president, the people defending the president, is to normalize this. so you have ambassador yavonovitch giving her testimony. the ukrainians wondered if i wa really leaving, whether we really represented the president, u.s. policy, et cetera. and so i think it was -- you know, it really kind of cut the ground out from underneath us. let's listen to jim jordan, one of the republican members of congress who they're trying to move to the intelligence committee so he can be more aggressive in defending the president saying, this is the president's call. >> the president of the united states is the guy who is in charge, and he can have whomever he wants trying to move policy forward. they didn't particularly like that, but it's the president's call and he's the one who can decide who is going to be ambassadors and who is going to do the diplomatic missions that

he thinks need to be done. >> remember, not long ago, this was rudy giuliani, especially on that network, saying, i was working with them. we were all on the same page, we were all doing the same thing. now the defense is, if the president wants to go around the foreign policy apparatus of the united states government, all the people, your tax dollars, are paying, instead of changing people in the positions if he doesn't like them. he has rudy giuliani who can do all his foreign policy while he is making money off clients in ukraine. >> that is really the key. underlying all of this is what was giuliani doing when he was trying to push yavonovitch out? this is kind of the elephant in the room that's going on a parallel track as there is this other investigation outside of congress into his associates and into his business dealings. but there are some real questions about what was motivating giuliani to push this negative narrative as many people have testified about ukraine and to try to undermine the existing foreign policy

infrastructure within trump's own administration. jim jordan is right. the president can change his policy when he wants, he can change his personnel when he wants. the question is why didn't he do it in a normal way? why didn't he change his ambassador if he wanted to do that? why didn't he change his policy if he wanted to do that? instead what happened is he had giuliani moving forward with a policy that several people have testified is contrary to the united states government's position on ukraine. so if the president wants to change the u.s. government's position on ukraine, he can do that. instead he had giuliani who seemed to be having multiple loyalties here, both his private client's and the president, moving guard with another track, and we still haven't gotten to the bottom of what was really behind that. it was politics, but there could have been other things. >> like working with people in ukraine who the ambassador believe were part of the corruption, the very corruption the u.s. policy was trying to root out. as this plays out, the republicans have to decide the strategy for the president. this is rand paul in a rally

with the president last night. we are here because of a whistleblower complaint. the democrats say we don't need testimony from the whistleblower anymore because so much of that information has been corroborated. now they have additional information from all these witnesses, but rand paul says no. >> the whistleblower needs to come before congress as a material witness because he worked for joe biden at the same time hunter biden was getting money from corrupt oligarchs. i say tonight to the media, do your job and print his name! >> he is part of an effort that includes the president who is standing there clapping to out the whistleblower. there are protections for whistleblowers under the law. rand paul also says there is a sixth amendment, that you have a right to confront your accuser. which i get. however, how are we going to balance this one out here in the sense the democrats say, we've got 20 other witnesses, we don't need this witness, and they are willing to testify publicly. we don't need to do this to a career intelligence operative, and the republicans say no.

>> watching rand paul's career, there is something so deeply ironic about this libertarian from the biggest press libertarian family in the country calling for more government involvement. there's something about that that just feels -- >> the man who defended ed snowden's right to be a whistleblower and reveal secrets. >> it's also just almost irrelevant at this point what the whistleblower has to say, because people who have more direct knowledge of what was going on have already testified. those people are out there, their names are out there, they face questioning from republicans as well in these hearings, and so this is a red herring. it's an effort by the president and his allies to create a boogieman who is invisible, who doesn't have a name, who is hiding in the shadows, but that person is less relevant than the people with more direct knowledge who have testified to all the facts. >> the world of facts. you use the word fact there which is important. less relevant in the world of

facts but in the political argument that is impeachment -- >> this is a continuation of what he and others are saying they want very much, as abby said, to make a bad guy here. up next, the conversation, including the president's inner circle, getting pulled in a l little closer to the center of the impeachment drama. for military, veterans and first responders. so they can stay connected, on our newest, most powerful signal ever. and now, we are also offering half off our top samsung phones for military, veterans and first responders. our service is just one way we say thank you... for theirs.

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committee to release two more transcripts from the witness interviews, two critical witnesses supposed to be released today. our first look at the impeachment inquiry witnesses came yesterday. secretary mike pompeo and the fox news personality sean hannity. marie yavonovitch telling the house committees, quote, what i was told by phil reeker that the secretary, or perhaps someone around him, was going to place a call to sean hannity at fox news to say, what is going on? do you have proof of these kinds of allegations or not? if you have proof, tell me. if not, stop. and i understand that call was made, the ambassador said. i don't know whether it was by the secretary or somebody in his inner circle. last night on his program, sean hannity said yavonovitch was, quote, barely ever mentioned on the show. barely ever is not a very precise term. you can do this at home. a quick google search of transcripts says she was indeed a top discussion on the show multiple times with multiple guests. here's a clip from march about

one month before yavonovitch got the call to come back to washington. >> marie yavonovitch has bad-mouthed the president of the united states to ukranian officials and has told them not to listen or worry about trump policy because he's going to be impeached. >> mr. degene vrva works for an oligarch there. they don't mention that part. to this point, cara at wowood js our discussion. he didn't stand up for yavonovitch and others when she complained about rudy giuliani.

he doesn't like these questions, does he? >> he doesn't like them at all, because each person we hear from implicates secretary pompeo more to everything that's happening here. the reality is it's shocking that the state department went to sean hannity and asked what they knew about ambassador yavonovitch but never went to her. she testified in the transcript that we saw yesterday that she never got direct questions from the state department about the reality of these allegations and if they were true, and she also painted this really jarring picture of being woken up at 1:00 in the morning and being told by the state department that she needed to immediately come home. so pompeo is really not wanting to discuss this, and every person we hear from is bringing him closer and closer to the heart of the reality of what's unfolding here. >> it's a little bit more from the ambassador. remember, she's under attack back home, and rudy giuliani is working his own business with the ukranian officials. the ukranians are tellin her,

do you really speak for the president? we're not sure. she said, what i wanted was for the president to issue a statement saying, you know, i have full confidence, or something like that, to indicate that i, in fact, am the ambassador of ukraine, that i speak for the secretary of state and our country. i was told there was caution from any kind of statement because it could be undermined. she asked, by whom? and the foreign ambassador said, by the president. they were saying if they put out a statement, it would be followed by a tweet or something else that would blow it up. >> a couple themes in this testimony that mirror things that are true about the trump administration, which is, a, that people are always hesitant to get ahead of the president, because they know that they cannot always count on people around the president to know exactly how he's feeling at any given moment. and the reason for that is because when the president takes in information, a lot of times it's from fox news, it's from sean hannity, it's from people he's getting on the phone with at night or early in the morning, so it creates this

dynamic within the administration where people don't really know where information is coming from, what is getting to the president, and where they can go safely without having their feet cut out from under them. it shows also the power of fox news in trump's world that the state department has to go to them to basically say, tell me what's going on here, is extraordinary. it is not an exaggeration to say this is a direct channel for people outside of the administration to communicate with the president directly on a program that he watches regularly. >> so there is also a credibility issue. there is a question of did secretary pompeo just go along, did he think the rudy giuliani thing was fine, and did he just bite his tongue and say, i'm just going to let it happen and not stand up for my people? someone is lying. the deputy to mike pompeo said this in his testimony. how many conversations did you have with the secretary in this

manner, that being not standing up for yavonovitch? three, probably. i made it clear i was looking to leave the department. i wasn't looking to create a news story about it, but people were very aware that i was concerned about what i saw as the lack of public support for department employees. so he is leaving, and the secretary's refusal to stand up for the ambassador, part of his reason, three times, he says. here's secretary pompeo on television. >> from the time that ambassador yavonovitch departed ukraine until the time that he came to tell me that he was departing, i never heard him say a single thing about his concerns with respect to the decision that was made. not once. not once, george, did ambassador mckinley say anything to me during that entire time period. >> so either ambassdor mckinley or the current secretary of state and possibly to be the deputy from kansas is lying.

>> yeah, it was sondland's excuse to say no one told me what they were doing, and that's proven not to be true. i think for a long time we've been reporting that the state department has been very low. i think this is the worst manifestation of that in many ways, and it shows both why so many rank and file people, when presented with a subpoena, are just ready to go to congress and give this testimony, and it also indicates that even if you have people at the top of the chain -- and taylor testified to this at one point, that the secretary of defense, the cia director, that bolton were not on board with this, but also they didn't go and stop it. there seems to be this fear of the president, and yet that means people in the inner circle knew what was going on and would be valuable as wntitnesses, and even if they weren't part of the house, it will be interesting to go if they speak up more.

>> we're still waiting for the transcripts to be released on capitol hill. we'll bring you those as soon as they come up. when we come back, it's election day. one of the big races being watched, the race for governor in kentucky. ays to age gracefully. at bayer, this is why we science. where people go to learn about their medicare options before they're on medicare. come on in. you're turning 65 soon? yep. and you're retiring at 67? that's the plan! it's also a great time to learn about an aarp medicare supplement insurance plan, insured by unitedhealthcare insurance company. here's why...medicare part b doesn't pay for everything.

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today is election day, and some of the november 2019 races are being watched for clues about the 2020 presidential year

climate. there are two governor's races in kentucky today. andy beshear is running for that there in the state of kentucky. other big races down in mississippi. a red state, right? reeves against the attorney general jim hood. some third-party candidates in play there as well. you go back in time, you think mississippi, you think kentucky. you look back at the 2016 presidential election, these are ruby red states. so why do we watch tonight? particularly, you look at kentucky. the earlier results in 2016 started to tell us donald trump was in for a good night. not just the margin that he won in kentucky, that was a big start. the president was there for a rally last night. does matt bevin win big, does he lose tonight? even if it's close, what do we see around the suburbs? the president cares enough to make a pre-election rally in

kentucky and the man close to the race hugs the president. >> let's send a message to washington, to the other states, to the united states of america that kentucky is leading the way and that we support the president of the united states, donald j. trump! >> if you win, they're going to make your life ho-hum. and if you lose, they'll say trump suffered the greatest defeat in the history of the world. this was the greatest. you can't let that happen to me! >> it's entertaining. he is right to the degree that if the republican wins in a red state, most people will shrug and say we didn't learn a lot. if the republican struggles or if the republican loses, it will be evidence of a climate even if it's in the race for governor. this is about the state of the economy, this is about health care in the state, there are a lot of social issues in the campaign. it still will be taken as a question of republican turnout intensity, trump love. >> these races in mississippi

and kentucky, there is a run in louisiana in a couple weeks, and they'll all be a gauge on the president's enthusiasm and support going into next year. he's not wrong. what he said last night reflects the thinking of a lot of his advisers where they see no down side going in in these final moments, trying to watch turnout. they know if they get wins, they can direct people away from impeachment. they see that as a benefit. if he loses, they get blamed either way. >> to that point, the trump campaign is being smart about these rallies. there are people lined up outside. they're getting phone numbers, they're getting email addresses and they're staying in touch with these people. a ton of money to spend. so they can even make mistakes. they can gather data, gather information, test things out, trial and error. he said last night 275,000 voters came ocame out.

28% voted once or less in last four elections. 23% democrats. nearly 100% from kentucky. they learn regardless of what happened last night. >> that's true, though the president only seems to play things one way, and that's to his base, and if they're trying to broaden that message, they're going to have to try to shift course or diverse course a little bit, and the question is will the candidate come along with them? >> one of the great things about kentucky is just how complicated republican politics are. mitch mcconnell doesn't get along terribly well with rand paul. he doesn't get along with matt bevin from 2014. matt bevin spent $5.3 million

losing to mitch mcconnell. matt bevin knows this is a close race. he's tried to nationalize it to a degree to make it about impeachment, in addition to state issues, to try to get voters to come up to him. republican candidates say, no, no, this is about kentucky. >> people want a governor that listens more than he talks. we have a governor that the last four years tried to tear down our teachers, tried to take them off their health care, trying to bring down every teacher, policeman and firefighter. he's trying to hide behind everyone he can. >> it's a picture of what may happen all over the country, to make it a little more local and less about the impeachment inquiry, frankly. the republicans are more than happy to ride on the anger that impeachment serves up in trump's base. that's the real dynamic that's happening out there.

as much as democrats in washington believe that their most fervent supporters want them to pursue this, when you look at candidates lower down on the ballot, they want to kind of steer away from it because it's a bit of a wild card for the democrats. trump knows this, which is why he talked about it extensively at that kentucky rally. it's all about making people feel like his back is up against the wall. it gets them out the door and to the polls. as we go to break, a sad day 25 years ago today. ronald reagan in a handwritten letter revealed he was suffering from alzheimer's, saying, quote, i intend to live the remainder of the years god gives me on this earth doing the things i have always done. i will continue to share life's journey with my beloved nancy and my family. he passed away 25 years ago at the age of 93.

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topping our political radar today, construction of a truly new session of president tru new section of president trump's border wall is being built in texas, putting in new fence

where none ever stood. they are devoted to building 360 miles of new barriers. it started last week in the rio grande valley where 40% of immigration busts take place. congress is racing to try to avoid a government shutdown. they have a deadline coming up pretty quickly and you have the impeachment train. will they collide? >> reporter: the key thing i hear from negotiators behind the scenes right now is keep them separated, keep them as separated as humanly possible. obviously it's a very short timeline to the end of the resolution. democrats nor republicans want a shutdown, and i was talking to an individual a while ago, and that individual said there is no talk of shutdowns in the white house, either. the key is for each of the subcommittees to get their job

done. i think i would get fired if i said the three b's on television. if they get it done, there is feeling that they would be able to get all the bills done before the end of the year and not push it to next year. if not, it goes into a senate trial. here's two things to watch for, mitch mcconnell in the house, nancy pelosi in the congress. obviously the wild card remains the president. who knows what he'll wake up and tweet or when it comes to wall money, which is a point of d dissension, whether that will shut things down. people feel pretty good about where things are, but they have to reach an agreement and the president has to sign offer, toto -- off, too, john. >> there is a new deposition request for the president's acting chief of staff, mick

mulvaney. what do you think? >> reporter: this is just coming on you. we're still waiting for the two transcripts they're going to release today, but mick mulvaney has been requested by the democrats to come in for a closed door deposition. in a letter from mulvaney, he wrote, based on the public reporting, we believe you have firsthand knowledge relative to the house and impeachment inquiry. that is probably understated to some degree. everyone knows that mick mulvaney was at the center of a lot of this. when it comes to the actual hold of nearly $4 million in money to ukraine, mulvaney directed the omb to put that hold on after he was told by the president to do just that. he was in many of the meetings. there is an expectation that if anybody knows the actual ins and outs of the actual money that was withheld, why it was withheld and explicit orders from the president, that would be mick mulvaney. there are no expectations mick mulvaney will come to capitol hill for a closed door

deposition. what will be interesting to see is whether or not democrats are checking a box here saying, look, we know he's a key player, we need to ask him. there is no expectation whether he will come up or how this will play out in the days ahead. but they also get closer to closing the closed door sessions of this and moving to public hearings. mick mulvaney is someone everyone wants to talk to. no expectation he will come in and talk, but they are moving forward on this and they are moving in quickly in the next few weeks, john. >> appreciate the dual track reporting there today. mick mulvaney is key because, number one, two of his deputies were among those who refused to testify this week who were supposed to go up there. did the president tell you to put the military aid on hold? did the president tell you why he wanted an exchange for releasing the military aid? and if you watched his television briefing a few weeks ago, he probably said, yeah, there's a quid pro quo, get over it, and then tried to take it

back. >> the democrats feel they have that public admission of the quid pro quo already. i could be wrong, the deposition is scheduled for a saturday, which makes it more unlikely mick mulvaney comes in. he could show up, but odds are he's not going to. this is to set up the congress charge. unless mulvaney is on his way out of the administration or something, he has no incentive to start playing ball with the democrats more than he did in that public statement, which he tried to walk back twice in a written statement on the shows a few days later. the democrats may not get any truth from mulvaney in this deposition unless he's had a change of heart or status as far as the president goes. >> not only do they have this issue of funding the government, there are also the primary contests which start in february, and this will have to move to the senate and the house. so there is imperative not only events coming down the line but the politics to keep this moving

and moving quickly, so it's hard for me to see a big battle playing out in court over this. >> isn't he acting chief of staff also? >> yes, he is acting chief of staff. >> the thought about keeping those two train tracks separate, good luck. new 2020 strengths for joe biden and president trump. and now, we are also offering half off our top samsung phones for military, veterans and first responders. our service is just one way we say thank you... for theirs. $$9.95? no way.? $9.95? that's impossible. hi, i'm jonathan, a manager here at colonial penn life insurance company,

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there's new 2020 polling including numbers that show voters are open to changing presidents. don't get ahead of yourself, it's a year until election day, but in a new york post poll out today, joe biden beats president trump by 17 points nationally, elizabeth warren beats him by 15 points, bernie sanders by 14, buttigieg by 11, kamala harris by 9. it tells you voters are at least open to the idea of having a new president. those are pretty big numbers. but remember, we pick the president state-by-state, not in a national election. joe biden leading in pennsylvania, for example. so is bernie sanders over president trump. michigan tied if it's biden, bernie sanders with a slight edge. the president, though, winning, meaning the democrats are down by this margin in north carolina, all of them. in arizona biden on top, sanders down, warren on top. it gets more complicated when

you go state-by-state. in the state of iowa, for example, a big state for the president last time around, he gets 45% and beats both buttigieg and biden. the president gets 45% and wins over biden and sanders. of course, they have to pick a nominee first. biden on top is nationally, warren, sanders, buttigieg, harris. then you come over here, klobuchar, lang, booker, gabbard. if you go over here, warren seems to be second and joe biden going higher. >> with crises that still require urgent action, i am running to be the president who will pick up the pieces of our

divided nation and lead us toward real action. we will fight when we must fight. but i will never allow us to get so wrapped up in the fighting that we start to think fighting is the point. >> we ended there, started with the national polls, because, as much as i'm going to share national polls when we get them, the national poll shows people are looking for a new president, that is a year from now. we have people just back from iowa. is the buttigieg movement real? >> yes. i was just in iowa fort weeken weekend. he has money, his organization. what happens if he places in iowa? his campaign certainly gives you a boost of momentum. he does not poll well with non-white voters. that will be a serious problem. it will be difficult to see a %-p?

obviously, you want to win iowa, but if you can't win, is it come in behind biden? >> i think they want to win and think they have a shot to do it. they also want to establish themselves as the alternative to elizabeth warren. that's what this is all about. they take at face value that joe biden's support seems to be quite stagnant where it is, so the question is for people who decide they want an alternative to biden, they want those voters to know that buttigieg is that person, and that if they're uncomfortable with a farther left candidate like warren, they can rely on him. so it's really critical for him to establish that narrative in iowa and then take it into new hampshire, and they're also hoping it will help him gain credibility as a potential winner when he gets to south carolina. but there's also, as lisa poi pointed out, a lot of work to be done there. >> it's bizarre that biden does so well in the national polls

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four years in a row. at bayer, we're more than we help farmers like john. by developing digital tools, so he can use less water to grow crops. at bayer, this is why we science. the trial and long-time trump friend roger stone getting underway in federal court here in washington with jury selection. stone is charged with lying to lawmakers in the russian interference in the 2016 election and was trying to obstruct that investigation. stone has pled not guilty to the seven counts he is facing. we'll keep a watch on that trial

in the days ahead. thank you for joining us on "inside politics." we'll see you tomorrow. brianna keilar starts right now. have a great afternoon. i'm brianna keilar live from cnn's washington headquarters. underway right now, any moment now, we are expecting to see our first glimpses of another set of transcripts from the impeachment inquiry, but we are following other breaking news from the congressional committees leading this probe as well. the committees sent a letter to the white house. they are requesting that acting chief of staff mick mulvaney give a deposition. remember, mulvaney admitted to a quid pro quo over ukraine aid, and he told the white house press corps, quote, get over it. the testimony we're expecting today is from kurt volker. he was president trump's special envoy to ukraine, but he resigned one day after the release of the whistleblower